Glance back at car reveals headlights are on

The days are darker and longer this time of year, which means more and more drivers turn their car headlights on during the day.

I'm always a little hesitant to follow suit.

When I'm driving along in the middle of the day, and everything around me is perfectly visible, yet every car coming in the opposite direction still has their headlights going at full force, I'll ultimately probably wind up putting my lights on, but it feels a little like I'm yielding to peer pressure.

I'm less hesitant when the headlights are genuinely necessary - I hate driving in fog - but even on these occasions, turning my headlights on carries a modicum of danger.

The danger, you see, is that I will forget to turn them off again.

Oh, nighttime is a breeze. You just drive up towards something, and it's fairly obvious your headlights are still on, because they're illuminating everything in front of them.

But during the day, when everything is already bright, it's hard to remember to turn off my lights, especially if I park my car somewhere where the headlights don't have anything to shine upon.

So it's the time of year where I have to remember to look back over my shoulder at my car and make sure everything's off that's supposed to be.

This usually results in a series of glances in which I look back, am assured, then start wondering if I actually remembered to glance back and check, so I look again, and then I start to think, maybe I didn't see any lights because I was looking at the car from a bad angle, and I proceed to worry about the car all for the rest of whatever it is I'm doing.

One would think that with this high amount of ongoing worry, my car would be the least likely to ever have its lights on at an inopportune moment, but in fact the opposite is true.

I'll come out of a grocery store, after going through each and every aisle in something I like to call the not-at-work shuffle, only to find my car shimmering like a spotlight. On the plus side, it does make it easier to find.

This in the day and age where cars automatically leave their lights on for a few extra moments. I'm so in tune to leaving my lights on, I'll call out an alert to my neighbors or the owners of the cars parked next to me in parking lots.

"You left your lights on," I'll say, my voice full of tender concern - especially if said neighbor is an attractive girl we suspect might be single.

"Oh, we know," they reply. "They'll go off in a second."

And they do, as we all stand there watching, leaving me feeling like even more of a doofus.

Once - and only once, knock on wood - did I ever leave my lights on so long the car refused to start. I'm not one to ask for help easily, so I was mortified to have to call a neighbor and ask for help jump starting my car. It was a procedure which was new to the both of us and a task made even more daunting because of viewings of multiple cartoons where things didn't go so well, and the protagonist usually gets sent flying great distances, carried by the force of a high voltage shock.

Thankfully, no such jolt took place on this occasion, and my car was soon returned to its natural state.

Obviously, however, I did not learn my lesson, no matter how much I try.

It makes me feel so - Oh.

They're saying someone left their lights on.

Sigh.

It's probably me.

If you'll excuse me, I have to run out to the parking lot.